Warehouse 13 Reviews: Season 1, Episode 11

Episode 11: Nevermore

This one starts in Colorado Springs, Colorado, at a bookstore with the familiar name of Bering & Sons. A delivery guy leaves a package outside the door and the store owner comes out to pick it up. We know from previous episodes that Myka’s father runs a bookstore in Colorado, so obviously this is him. (He’s played by Michael Hogan aka Tighe on Battlestar Galactica). As for Myka, she’s in Berlin, busting into MacPherson’s apartment but finding it empty. Last episode, Artie got the go-ahead to hunt down rogue Warehouse agent MacPherson and it looks like he’s going all out. As Myka checks MacPherson’s place in Berlin, and Artie and Claudia direct things from the Warehouse, Pete has actually found MacPherson in Montreal. Unfortunately, Pete has the cops on his ass, so when he corners MacPherson, the cops are right behind him despite Artie’s efforts to call them off.

In Colorado Springs, Myka’s dad (Warren) examines the package, which turns out to be an old notebook with a bunch of stuff scribbled in it. As he reads it, the words from the book seep under his skin and travel all over his body. Apparently it’s quite painful, and he starts screaming like a banshee. Myka finds an empty box in MacPherson’s apartment and informs the others that MacPherson has the cymbals. Pete finds that out first hand as MacPherson uses a pair of tiny cymbals to blast a huge sound wave down the alley. Thanks to Myka’s warning, Pete covers his ears in time and is just knocked out, but the cops take the full force of the blast and wind up dead. By the time Pete gets back on his feet, MacPherson is long gone, so Artie tells him and Myka to get back to the Warehouse as soon as possible. But Myka gets a call from her mom about her dad, so she says she has to go to Colorado instead.

Meanwhile, at a school called Kingford Academy in Portland, Oregon, a guy named Bobby moons over his crush on a girl (Tamara) and endures some bullying from an asshole named Greg; you know, the usual teenage melodrama. At Leena’s boardinghouse, Mrs. Frederick gives Artie shit for trying to bag MacPherson. He was only supposed to observe and report, but let his emotions get the better of him and jumped in without being prepared. She says next time he finds MacPherson, he’d better not do anything without her orders. At Kingford, Bobby is taking a test (the question on the blackboard says “Ernest Hemingway vs. Charles Schulz: Compare and Contrast”) when he hears some weird whispering coming from a glass cabinet that holds a bunch of Edgar Allan Poe memorabilia. Nobody else seems to hear it, so he finishes the test. Afterward, his teacher, Mr. Ives (played by Neil Crone from Little Mosque on the Prairie and a bunch of other stuff) tries to help him with his unrequited crush on Tamara. Is that really something you’d talk to your teacher about?

Anyway, Bobby is still hearing the whispers from the cabinet and when he looks at a quill pen, he gets flashes of the scribbly notebook and Myka’s father. I guess we know whose book that is now. Ives gives Bobby a book of poetry to woo Tamara with (maybe he’s hot for Tamara himself and living vicariously through Bobby), but Bobby’s still distracted by the freaky whispering. In Colorado, Myka gets to the bookstore, hoping her father is still alive, only to be told by her mom (Jeannie) that he recovered right away and he seems fine now. (Myka’s mom is played by Susan Hogan, Michael Hogan’s wife in real life.) Myka is surprised to find Pete has beaten her there and is scarfing down wings in the kitchen. Myka’s dynamic with her dad is still the same, with him criticizing her at every opportunity. Pete wonders why she hasn’t told them that she no longer works in Washington, but she says it’s easier to lie than to deal with their disappointment.

Myka’s dad apparently didn’t learn his lesson the first time, because he starts reading the Poe book again and it affects him the same way. This time, there’s a connection with Bobby in Portland, who hears the whispers again and goes into a kind of trance. He goes into the English room and busts into the Poe cabinet, stealing Poe’s pen. In Colorado, the words start crawling under Warren’s skin and he screams bloody murder again. Myka, Pete, and Jeannie come running and see the words flowing under Warren’s skin. Pete uses his special gloves to toss the book away and points out the obvious: Warren has found an artifact.

Some time later, Claudia shows up at the bookstore with a vat of neutralizing goo for the book. Jeannie wants to know what the hell Myka’s into (and who the man in the little TV is) and Myka admits she’s not protecting the President anymore, but doesn’t give any details about what she really does. Pete puts the book into the neutralizer, but nothing happens; Warren still has the words under his skin and the purple goo has turned to ink. When they call Artie, he says the artifact must be bifurcated, meaning it has at least two components. They have to be neutralized together to reverse what’s happened to Myka’s dad. Unfortunately, they don’t know where the other component is, although Artie surmises it’s probably a pen because of the way the ink keeps manifesting.

Artie mentions the return address on the package was a fake and Myka figures MacPherson must’ve sent it. Artie says Pete’s family and Claudia’s brother will be protected just in case, but the main thing now is to find the pen. Artie has analyzed the writing in the book and figured out it belonged to Poe. He says it’s affecting Myka’s dad because of his love of the written word and tells her he probably won’t last more than a day or two unless they find the pen. Artie says he’ll monitor every possible event so the next time Warren has an attack, he can zero in on where the pen is. Artie urges Myka to surround her father with books that he loves and read his favourites to him, in order to keep him tethered to reality.

They make kind of a nest of books around Warren and Myka reads to him. He starts getting agitated, talking about tigers and fire. Meanwhile at Kingford, Bobby’s tormentor gets a face full of fire when he opens his locker, as Bobby watches ominously in the background. Artie calls Pete to tell him about the weird fire incident (and that Kingford’s school team is the Tigers), and Pete lets Myka know. She ready to head off to Portland, but Pete says she should stay with her dad, and that he’ll take Claudia to Portland. He also mentions that he thinks Myka’s mom is hot; I’d have to agree.

At Kingford, Mr. Ives asks Bobby about the missing Poe pen and says he won’t make a big deal of it if the pen is returned as suddenly as it disappeared. Bobby gives him a note that says “Wall” and Ives is pulled into the wall of the classroom, which then bricks itself back up like in the Cask of Amontillado. Of course, that agitates Myka’s dad even more. When Pete and Claudia show up at Kingford, they check Greg (the bully)’s locker and find a note taped inside that says “Fire”. (In case anyone cares, Greg’s fine, just a little singed.) Pete asks the principal if they have Edgar Allan Poe’s pen there and he says they did, but it was stolen from Mr. Ives’ classroom. Bobby is nearby, eavesdropping on their conversation—ominously, of course. In Colorado, Myka’s dad is getting worse. He apologizes for being a shitty father and Jeannie tells Myka that he has so many regrets; not just about her, but about his life in general. He wanted to be a novelist and ended up rewriting his first book a dozen times, always too scared to let go of it. He finally told her to burn it and hasn’t written anything since.

Pete and Claudia check out Mr. Ives’ classroom and Pete hears some weird noises. (Pete: “Hear anything?”; Claudia: “Just the beating of my hideous—”; Pete: “Stop it.”) They figure out thre’s someone inside the wall and bust it open. Ives tells them Bobby put him in there and they have to stop him. Bobby is really losing his shit now and gives Tamara a note that says “Mine”. Myka’s dad is getting much worse because of Bobby using the pen and Artie says she has to read him the book he loves most in the world to keep him grounded. She asks her mom if she really burned Warren’s old manuscript, and of course she didn’t.

At Kingford, Pete and Claudia find Bobby (and Tamara, who’s in some kind of trance now) and ask him to hand over Poe’s pen. Bobby points to a note he left on the hallway floor that says “Pendulum” and Pete and Claudia almost get sliced in half by a swinging blade. They hit the ground and straps appear out of nowhere, holding them down as the pendulum blade drops closer. In Colorado, Myka reads her dad’s manuscript to him (which is about how much he loves his daughter and worries about her) and it seems to affect the words under his skin. It definitely has an effect on Bobby, who drops Poe’s pen. The bands holding Claudia dissolve and she bags the pen, bringing Bobby and Tamara around and making the deadly pendulum disappear. Pete takes the bagged pen, saying it still has a hold on Bobby and Myka’s dad.

In Colorado, Pete sets the pen on top of the notebook and all the words under Warren’s skin dissolve into black smoke and rush back into the pen. Pete bags the artifacts and Warren wakes up with no memory of all the shit that just happened. He and Myka reconcile (to some degree) and they get ready to head home. Artie gets a visit from Mrs. Frederick, who tells him MacPherson is in Colorado Springs. Artie tries to warn Pete and Myka but can’t get through. Pete has a vibe and the lights go out in the bookstore, so he and Myka rush back in. They find Myka’s parents motionless in a beam of light, cast by a lantern (which belonged to Jack the Ripper) in MacPherson’s hand. If he turns off the lantern, Myka’s parents will die. He asks for Poe’s book and pen and Myka gives him shit for dragging her family into all this. MacPherson says Artie was the one who started that. Myka hands over the Poe artifacts and MacPherson disappears in a burst of light, releasing Myka’s parents. When Artie realized MacPherson played them the whole way to get the Poe artifacts, he’s not happy. We’ll see what he does about it next episode.